Why We Fight (31 of 48)

Why We Fight

LEWIS: We don't like to think of ourselves as a militant nation, but we are, in fact, an incredibly militant and militaristic nation.
It 's not a view of ourselves that we wanna carry around but the fact is, we are.
If the President and the military-industrial complex, the defense establishment, if they all have decided that suddenly there's a problem somewhere and we need to drop some bombs or even put land forces somewhere in some country, this is a ritual that we have been seeing for decades.
We've toppled governments.
We've done coup detats.
We've used intelligence services for covert purposes and done horrible things around the world.

And we have put up with the most heinous human rights abusing countries.
We have propped them up.
We've even trained them how to commit human rights abuses.
Today's demon was yesterday's friend all in the name of either the Cold War, or for commercial reasons.
It 's basically economic colonialism LEWIS: No one uses the colonialism word, but instead of just taking over the countries, we have a better way.
We just go in and have free markets.
Whether we're trying to sell our products to their citizens or we're trying to mine their resources, we need to be in that country for some reason.
And, therefore, we're gonna talk about free markets, free trade.
But what's really going on is we want our companies to get rich in your country.
MAN: There she is.
That's what all the fuss is about, oil.
It 's kind of pretty, isn't it?
Oil coming up out of the ground to make life a bit more easy for all of us.
JOHNSON: The United States is the world's largest consumer of fossil fuels.
Oil is what drives the military machine of every country.
That is, it provides the fuel for the aircraft, for the ships, for the tanks, for the trucks.
Control of oil is indispensable When you run out of it, your army stops.